1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for bread production, and more particularly a process and apparatus for stably forming a continuous and uniform belt-like strip having a predetermined thickness from a gel-like elastic material such as bread dough by causing the dough to effectively and constantly flow downward from an outlet provided at the bottom of a hopper.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional method to produce a large amount of bread, a certain amount of bread dough in a hopper is sucked by a piston into a cylinder provided at the bottom of the hopper, and then the bread dough is extruded from the cylinder and cut, and this cutting and extruding step is repeated.
The above-mentioned conventional method contains many complicated steps. Also, this method applies repeated shearing stress to the bread dough which decreases its elasticity. Therefore, a chemical additive such as potassium bromate is added to the bread dough to restore the original gluten tissue and to recover its membrane function, which is required for producing bread.
Japanese Patent Publication Nos. 5-3253 and 6-37 disclose additional apparatuses and methods. These references teach pressing dough between rotating opposed rollers to continuously produce a dough strip. However, these references teach a method by which the pressure on bread dough applied by the opposed rollers is prevented from increasing too much by detecting with a sensor a relevant amount of dough supplied from an upper pair of pressing rollers to a lower pair of pressing rollers, and then adjusting the rotating speed of the upper pressing rollers based on this sensed amount. However, the methods and apparatuses disclosed by these references are also complicated and expensive. Further, a distance between the rollers of each pair of rollers is fixed, thereby limiting the properties and amount of dough passing between the rollers, and subjecting the dough to excessive pressure such that the elasticity of the dough is lost.